


Subtext Abuse

by my_daroga



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Banter, First Kiss, M/M, Meta, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_daroga/pseuds/my_daroga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/trek_rpf_kink/713.html?thread=1006025#t1006025">this prompt</a>: <em>Nimoy, Shatner and Kelley talking about how clearly their characters are a threesome.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Subtext Abuse

Bill Shatner didn't drink. Oh, there was a glass or two of wine at dinner, sometimes, but he didn't drink like Leonard drank. Like De Kelley talked about drinking. He knew the others thought it was some kind of pose, but honestly, he just didn't feel the need. People were accusing him of being drunk or high all the time anyway, and he didn't see any reason to conform to their expectations.

This was just what he was like. And, if Leonard didn't seem to drink quite as much when Bill was around, so much the better. Not that Leonard ever really seemed drunk, and they'd never talked about it, but a tired, silent Leonard was no fun. So alcohol was not a convenient explanation for what was going on now. Even Bill wasn't too sure what that was, and he was fairly certain he'd started it. Somehow. It was usually his fault, he'd been told, and something told him that was true, even when he wasn't exactly sure what "it" was.

Right now, he thought, "it" probably consisted of Leonard's tongue in his mouth, and his own hand between De's skinny thighs, and he hoped with what was left of his brain that they weren't going to try to pin this on _him_ seeing as he was the one sandwiched between them on the two-person loveseat in his dressing room.

It had started, innocently enough, at lunch with himself and Leonard trying to determine who was the most Jewish.

"De," said Bill, as DeForest passed by slowly as if looking for a table when it was obvious he was just going to sit with them anyway. "Which one of us is more Jewish?" Leonard was acting as though the question were beneath him by staring intently at his plate, which meant of course he was very interested in the answer.

"What kind of a question is that?" De said, flopping down opposite them and jabbing at his peas. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

"No, it's totally innocent," Bill protested. "I promise I'm not trying to trap you into saying something bigoted and ignorant."

De shot him a look and set his mouth decidedly. Like a frog, Bill thought. A disgruntled frog. Frogs were cute. He smiled at De without sharing this insight.

"What is he on?" De asked Leonard pointedly, jabbing a thumb in Bill's direction as if he could possibly be talking about anyone else.

"Ice cream sandwiches," Leonard said, looking up. "Three of them. He's delighted by the fact that I have to play the dark, Satanic alien while he gets to play the cornfed all-American hero and pull one over on an unsuspecting populace."

"Like in The Intruder," Bill said proudly, because he was proud of it, box office be damned. "Did you see that one?"

"Bill, no one saw that one," Leonard said dryly, and Bill just stuck out his tongue because dry with Leonard was sort of like smiling for normal people.

"Myself included," said De. "But I'll tell you one thing: Kirk being Jewish doesn't bother me nearly as much as Kirk being Canadian."

Leonard nodded seriously, gesturing a vague toast with his pop bottle. "That is the true fraud being perpetrated against the American public," he agreed. "Can you imagine what they'd do if the knew?"

"You'd be run out of town," De said, munching his roll thoughtfully. Bill thought he was eying his last ice cream sandwich and the man was not going to get it, no matter how much fattening he needed.

"Iowa would disown you," Leonard added.

"Why the hell would I want to be from Iowa?" Bill said, and grinned. "Anyway, I'm just doing my part to combat racism."

De blinked. "Against Canadians."

Bill nodded happily. "You're just jealous. What stereotypes are you two breaking?"

"What stereotypes does anyone know you're breaking, unless you start talking funny?" De asked with his listening face on.

"Leonard's the one with the accent, not me," Bill said. "SensOR."

"NAT-zee." "SaboTAAGE." Leonard and De spoke at the same time, stared at each other, and cracked up. Bill glowered and unwrapped his last lovely frozen confection.

"Even then," Leonard said when they'd recovered, "everyone just thinks you're being pretentious."

"Pretentious? Have they seen you talk?"

"I'm dignified," Leonard corrected pretentiously. "And I think you mean 'heard.'"

"Don't worry," De said kindly, patting Bill on the shoulder. "They don't know you like we do."

Bill would have answered, but it would have been rude with half an ice-cream sandwich in his mouth.

"You know what we _are_ pulling over on an unsuspecting populace," Len mused after a moment, and Bill got ready to turn his brain off. Leonard was going to go off on one of his intellectual trips, where all that was required of him was to nod once in awhile and look earnest. Since he did this regularly anyway, it took very little energy. "The fact that Spock could easily be read as a sort of metaphor for the closeted homosexual experience."

Bill, having finished the sandwich, was treated to the unpleasant sensation of Coke being snorted through his nose, the wrong type and wrong direction for it to be glamorous and Hollywood-like, not that he partook, he was just like this naturally. To his surprise, De was just nodding thoughtfully.

"Well what about Kirk?" De asked. "I mean, you've got this macho starship captain, who gets chased by all the girls but gives 'em up every time to go lean over Spock's science station."

Bill thought maybe he was hearing things. Because he was pretty sure he'd just heard Len and De call Kirk and Spock gay. Which meant there was only one thing to say. "So, which of us is more gay?" he asked. "Kirk or Spock?"

They turned to him quite as if they'd forgotten he was there and just stared with something like the look he had often seen on his wife's face back when whatever he was doing that was exasperating was somewhat unbelievable but still endearing. He frowned in thought.

"Well, McCoy _is_ sort of... all fussy and--" He looked between them sharply, trying to determine whose Starfleet-issue boot had just jabbed his shin under the table. George eyed them from the next table over, where he had just sat down, and for reasons unknown to Bill the conversation moved on to other things.

Until that evening, when Len and De wandered into his dressing room while he was still putting on his shirt, for some reason ready much faster than he for their Friday night pizza dinner. Somehow, after a week's work, they still found the energy to stand each other another few hours before going home. What Bill seldom considered was that the ritual had begun shortly after he'd ceased to have much of a home to go to.

"I've been thinking," Bill said, buttoning up his shirt, "and I've decided that, if Kirk and Spock both want to have gay sex, specifically with each other, they must be equally gay."

"Your math skills astonish," Len said. "And I'm not even going to touch your understanding of human sexuality. Have you been thinking about this a lot?"

Bill nodded, ignoring whatever subtext might be in Len's inquiring expression. "Yeah, and it makes sense. I mean, all the times Spock saves Kirk, and all the times Kirk is, I don't know, all sensitive about him being half-Vulcan, and I don't even know what that pan for thing was about--"

"Pon farr."

"Whatever. They're totally having sex. Space sex."

"I thought you two had a thing going," said De smugly.

"Us?" Leonard and Bill looked at each other and burst out laughing. If the laughing happened to sound a lot like nervous giggles, well, that surely had no bearing on De's suggestion. And anyway, as Bill kept telling people, he did not giggle—that was just how he laughed.

"You're not that good an actor," De said, and Bill mock-punched him in the shoulder.

"So you're suggesting some sort of... method is in order," he said. "To, ah, enhance the believability of our performance." He whipped his head around to Leonard, whose eyes widened and then narrowed as his expression cycled through confusion, skipping disbelief to head straight for horror. Mock-horror, Bill decided. Len wasn't that good an actor.

"What's he on now?" Len asked, his eyes sliding warily to find De.

De cocked his head and looked at Bill critically. "Canada," he said. "They breed 'em funny up there."

Well, Bill thought. If he was going to be accused of something so dire, he might as well get some fun out of it. So without warning—a tactic which had served him well in the past—he grabbed Len, fell the few feet to the couch, and swarmed up his body to kiss him soundly on the lips.

It was odd, kissing Leonard Nimoy. Partly because he was a man. Partly because they were friends. Partly because Bill couldn't help but think about Kirk and Spock and wonder how much of this was suggested by them and he'd never really felt that way about a character before, that he'd begun to live his own life through Bill. Oh, he'd had the momentary fling with the female co-star, sure, hormones taking over where the lines on the page left off, but not like this.

Mostly, though, it was because Len was licking the seam of Bill's lips, demanding entrance, in a move Bill was patently familiar with on the _other_ side. Bill had sort of planned, as much as he'd planned anything, to surprise and annoy Len with his ambush and leave it at that. It seemed Leonard had other ideas, smugly evil ones by the look on his face as he pulled back to survey Bill's stunned and flushed expression.

So naturally, there was nothing to do but call his bluff right back, diving back in and launching a calculated attack on Leonard's mouth, now, with all his considerable skill—and enthusiasm—brought to bear. There was a strangled sound behind him, which he couldn't decide was a choke or a laugh, but frankly for once he was far more invested in regaining the upper hand than in analyzing the audience reaction.

Which, judging by the spots of color on Len's cheeks and his atypical inability to speak, was either highly favorable or the exact opposite. That uncertainty was part of show business, Bill mused. Either way, he had scored some kind of point, and felt very proud of himself. Len was just sort of staring at him, as if deciding between bolting and ripping Bill's clothes off, an expression he was very familiar with.

"So what would Bones think of all of this?" he asked, craning his head around to catch De's eye. "If he walked in on them—us--in a compromising position? Chide us in his best schoolmarm voice?"

"You don't know a damn thing," De said. "He's jealous."

If Bill's supreme self-satisfaction was rocked by that remark, all it meant was that when De kissed him his lips were parted enough that it was no simple peck. When they parted his mouth still hung open and he stared at him.

"The good doctor is one thing," Leonard finally found his voice behind him, "but what about the good Mrs. Kelley?"

"Oh, she'll be jealous, too," De said smugly.

"Jealous?" Bill echoed. "You're going to tell her?"

"You don't think I'd keep something this good from her, do you?" De shot back. "Hell, she's probably waiting for something like this to happen, and a little jealousy won't hurt my chances none."

"So you're saying," said Bill slowly, "that Carolyn is gonna like the thought of you kissing me. And that Doctor McCoy wants his captain."

"No, you idiot. You're so I can tell her I kissed Bill Shatner, not that that's any kind of exclusive club at this point." De leaned over Bill, offering a concise view of his scrawny rear as he reached for Leonard. "McCoy wants Spock."

"So let me get this straight," Bill said, as if De wasn't spread over him kissing Len. "They're a gay space threesome."

Both of them turned to look at him. "Well, yeah," they both said, and dissolved into giggles, random lip-locks, and mild groping.

It didn't really go anywhere past that night, and they didn't really talk about it later. But every so often, one of them would look at the others and double over in laughter inexplicable to anyone else, and once in awhile a rather indiscreet kiss would be shared in full view of everyone, with no explanation forthcoming. Because, Bill reasoned, no one had to say it. It was subtext.


End file.
